


Peace but at what cost?

by drelfina



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Founders Era, Gen, M/M, Senju Itama/Uchiha OC because that is the dude who killed Itama in canon, read the notes for some real background to this idea, to be fair no real pairings, uchiha shurama is technically canon he just has no name, what would you do if you met Baby Adolf Hitler?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 08:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: They had to kill the Senju Overlord.They had had no choice.Senju Kawarama grows up to take over the world. It is exactly as bad as you can imagine.





	Peace but at what cost?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Perelka_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perelka_L/gifts).

> So Perelka_L had linked me this: 
> 
> https://villagehiddeninthescreencaps.tumblr.com/post/169342842383/the-death-of-itama 
> 
> the death of Itama and I was struck by the fact that there were five fucking full grown men hanging around there to kill one tiny child in oversized armour. L also told me that when Kawarama was killed, they only found _pieces_ of him. 
> 
> So i said, what the hell is this, this is not even ruthless war, this was some sort of specific targeted bullshit (which probably triggered that whole 'child hunting' squad tropes) 
> 
> So I said, what if they had a reason to be so brutal with Kawarama? 
> 
> What if they had to make sure Itama died? 
> 
> If you could go back in time and meet baby Adolf Hitler, what would you do? 
> 
> This is that story.

When Uchiha Shurama woke up, _he_ was already waiting, sitting quietly in the shadows, what dim light there was liming what Shurama could see of his hair a startling silver, like a shadowed moon. 

"So you're awake, Uchiha," he said. 

"Excellent observation, Senju," Shurama rasped. 

He hummed. "Yes, I do believe it is. You Uchiha are restless sleepers aren't you? Always tossing and turning…" 

Shurama managed not to flinch when the Senju leaned forward, slender cool fingers touching his chin and drawing his face up, forcing Shurama to meet his eyes. 

"It's the sharingan isn't it," he said, so quietly, so softly, and his thumb stroked up Shurama's cheek, and Shurama jerked back, before he could press even more. 

"What would you know about it?" 

"The last time I saw you," the Senju said mildly, "Your sharingan was just that, the sharingan. Three tomoe. But yesterday's skirmish?" 

Senju Itama smiled. "Whose death awoke your Mangekyou, Shurama? Was it your little brother Tajima's?"

* * *

The first time they killed Senju Kawarama, they thought it was over. 

The world was in flames, yes, but flames would die down eventually, and what remnants of the rebels could rebuild from the ashes, particularly when the ashes were of a finally dead mokuton, tangled roots and branches finally, finally inert, and they could consign the dead animated within them to the cleansing fire of Amatersu and the cycle of reincarnation instead of the hellish undead life. 

Death should have been straightforward. 

They killed the Senju Overlord, and had buried him deep, imprisoned his brother within his tomb because they might be shinobi, but they were not that ruthless, and the brother had been the voice of reason with the overlord, and had always granted those within his reach clean simple deaths. 

But. 

But. 

Spring came. 

And the brother just moved from his bed to the floor, pulling up the stone tile, and took the hand that burst through the soil. 

"What took you so long, brother?" 

"You try digging out from twenty feet of frozen soil," Senju Kawarama said, the greenish cast to his skin starting to fade the longer he was out of the ground.

* * *

There had been no reason to think much of Senju Kawarama, in the beginning. He was one of Senju Butsuma's sons, and for time immemorial, the Senju and the Uchiha had been at war with each other. The Senju had always been killing the Uchiha for killing the Senju for killing the Uchiha, round and round like an eternal serpent, always eating its tail. 

The brother who had developed the mokuton first was Senju Hashirama, Butsuma's heir, and it was a power and terror on the field, no doubt, but Madara developed the Mangekyou young, and for a time, he and Hashirama were equals, keeping the balance of light and dark, yin and yang. 

When Senju Tobirama joined the field, young and full of suiton that was the direct anithesis of Uchiha flame, that might almost have been a danger. But Izuna turned out to have a matching speed and was the perfect counter to Tobirama. 

When Butsuma died, there had been thought of maybe, possible, peace, since Butsuma was the war-monger of the family, whatever the reasons, but he would never have agreed to peace in his lifetime. 

Tajima mourned the death of a friend who he'd once met as a child by the river, and let it go. 

To everyone's surprise, however, Hashirama's first act on ascending to the head of clan was to immediately step down in favour of his third brother Kawarama, and _that_ was the beginning of the end. 

He was just a young man, barely a year younger than Tajima's own Izuna, but also his mokuton? 

Could raise the dead. 

And Senju Kawarama had had no intention of _peace_.

* * *

The first Senju General to fall was, surprisingly, Hashirama. Madara had not intended to, but maybe Hashirama had been feeling tired that day, and made a critical misstep, and Madara was shinobi enough to take advantage. 

It had surprised them all that Hashirama could die. 

They lost three squads to Tobirama's suiton stricken grief. 

The loss of Hashirama should have weakened the Senju's side. 

Except the next time they faced off against the Senju, Hashirama was back, clearly grey and undead, and that was when they realised just what kind of power Kawarama wielded.

* * *

The world had been nearly annihilated, overgrown with twisted branches and walking corpses of their own loved ones, when the Uchiha had finally managed to kill Kawarama. The water and lightning clans had long since fallen to Senju Kawarama's voracious appetite, his brothers at his right hand always. By the time Tobirama had died, they had long since been used to the fact that many times their own dead loved ones could well be wielding the blade to stab their eyes out, and add them to Kawarama's growing army. 

It had been a desperate play, and it turned out to be for naught, because unlike Hashirama, Kawarama… 

Could not die.

* * *

They killed Kawarama three times, losing tens of shinobi for each attempt before someone approached them. 

"We have to go back in time," said the Hagoromo, left by the Sage to maintain peace and balance. "Senju Kawarama is only killable before his mokuton awakened." 

It was a desperate gambit. 

And Tajima agreed, two of his children - his only _daughter_ \- volunteering to spend their power and lives to send Tajima back in time to kill Kawarama before his powers awoke. 

It worked. 

When young Kawarama died, he did not wake up the next season. 

And Tajima got to witness, only two years after the death of Kawarama, Itama grab Madara by the hand - and stop his heart.

* * *

It's never really alright when your own children die before you, before their time. The fact that they'd stopped the Senju warlord before he became one was a cold comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless. 

The kinder, less sadistic Itama became the Clan leader after Butsuma's death - perhaps via a vote, perhaps his older brothers acceded it to him. It wasn't like Tajima was privy to those details. 

But where Kawarama had taken some chaotic glee in destroying the world with his mokuton (perhaps, driven mad?), Itama… 

Itama noted that the Uchiha were their enemies, and that their allies would never be true allies as long as Uchiha were alive. They had killed his older brother. 

So he ordered them all exterminated. 

No torture, no hostage, no ransom.

No _quarter_. 

And Senju Itama led by example. 

There was no pain, but Tajima witnessed Izuna's mangekyou manifest at the death of his last remaining older brother, moments before Tajima himself caught a lightning burst of light, and turned to see Itama, behind him, and the blue-green chakra of his chakra before his own eyes exploded _painless_ from his head.

* * *

"Why are you even the Senju clan leader?" Shurama gasped, as Itama ground down against him, the cooling, healing curl of his chakra making Shurama's skin crawl up his throat. 

"The same reason your little brother became the Clan leader." Itama said, smiling gently, looking so much younger than his twenty-two years. "You killed my brother." 

Itama's hands cupped Shurama's cheeks. "And I wanted revenge far more than Anija wanted peace."

* * *

What his brothers wanted, Tobirama would get. No matter what. 

That was the lynch pin, wasn't it? 

Without Tobirama, then, itama and Kawarama wouldn't become clan leader, and the senseless, bloody war would end.

* * *

After the Hagoromo came to rescue Shurama, they decided the brother to kill had to be Tobirama. 

They killed him when he was five, drowning him in the pond where the child had been practicing his kata, in the most ironic of ironies considering his suiton nature. 

Who knew that without Tobirama, Hashirama blazed hotter than Kawarama and Itama put together, and despite - or maybe because of - his friendship with Madara, Hashirama was even more intent on bringing world to peace. 

By their knees, preferably.

* * *

They didn't even try killing just Hashirama. 

This time they tried killing all of the Senju brothers. 

It didn't work.

* * *

It came down to this, finally. 

That Kawarama had to die - if he didn't take over the Senju Clan and then the world, he would be fuel to his brothers - was a given. The Hagoromo took it upon themselves to kill him - and make sure they killed him young. 

Like the worst sort of invasive weed, the only way to kill him was to tear up the roots, careful not to leave any parts whole and burn and salt the earth. 

That Itama had to die - he was the coldest of them all; the most persuasive, and without him as the voice of perfectly logical _reason_, even motivated by revenge, his two elder brothers wouldn't even reason themselves into taking over the world. 

The Uchiha took that role. _Shurama_ took his squad, knowing how it'd paint the Uchiha, that full grown men dealing death to a child would tar them forever with thick sin that they would never be able to wash off. 

But they had to be sure. 

And it had to be Shurama - the only one who remembered personally that particular time-line, of Senju Itama murdering Tajima and keeping Shurama for cold, personal revenge… 

He was the only one who could harden his heart and kill a child in oversized armour.

* * *

And in this way, peace finally could be attained. 

But at what cost?

**Author's Note:**

> The whole idea is that the Sage left behind the Hagoromo with some instructions like, keep an eye on the world, keep it alive, in balance, at peace if possible. 
> 
> But then in the 'normal' timeline, Kawarama grew up. 
> 
> And Kawarama took over, and he _cannot die_.
> 
> (he has a dark mokuton. just go with it.) 
> 
> So the Uchiha and the Hagoromo had to keep going back in time , over and over trying to find the right combination of brothers to off before the world would be able to find SOME balance. 
> 
> That's why.


End file.
